At Paytm, we strive to provide you with flexible payment options to pay your bills, and we will maximize our efforts to ensure that you should not encounter any fees. However, beginning January 5, 2018 at 9:00 p.m. (EST), there are a few changes that will impact both Visa and American Express credit card holders.

Background

I wanted to use this opportunity to explain how we decided allowing payment methods for a particular transaction, and also share our direction for 2018.

We started Paytm with a mission: to make the Paytm bill payment experience a smooth, reliable and convenient one for every Canadian. We want to help people save money and avoid late fees; and we also offer rewards as a bonus for doing regular payments every month. To stay true to our mission, we have not been charging users credit card fees, which we incur, and have reimbursed all our credit card users that have been charged a fee because we want to stand by our promise.

However, we were informed that effective January 8, 2018, some card issuers would treat their Visa credit card transactions as a “Cash Advance”. If you pay any bill with a Visa credit card, you may incur additional fees on your monthly statement.

While we have already informed all impacted users in our blog post dated 17 December, we have decided to take it a step further and effective today, Visa credit cards will be suspended on our platform. We want to continue to keep your experience a reliable one, and to avoid any surprises that you may come across. We hope to find a resolution soon.

In addition to this, starting today, American Express cardholders will also notice a fee when they use Paytm to pay a bill. Since American Express credit cards incur an unreasonably higher service fee, when compared to other credit card service fees, it has debilitated our ability to provide our users the experience that they deserve as Paytm has been managing the fees.

How can I stop this ?

I wish we could tell you to “write to your councillor” or “sign a petition” or “assemble for a protest at your city center” to ask for a waiver on Cash Advance fees for bill payments — but that would not help 🙂 We are doing all possible things to enable this, and we will surely keep you posted as well. Do sign-up on our blog for updates.

What about the rest of us?

Nothing changes.

You can still use the Paytm app to pay a bill with any bank account in Canada, your Mastercard credit card, your bank debit card (Mastercard and Interac) and Paytm Cash.

The majority of our users are already on one of these payment method, so I am very happy to share that with you guys — Life goes on as usual, you just get some extra Paytm Rewards this month through our newly launched Gift card deals, and two contests that we’re running this month: one for a fully-paid beach vacation for two during spring break; and another one for an iPhone X.

And if that wasn’t good enough, the team has been cooking up something big. Stay tuned for the big announcement next week!

A final note on ‘manufactured spending’ from our Ops team:

I would like to take this opportunity to share Paytm’s philosophy on the usage of credit cards. As mentioned above, we have always enabled all types of payment methods and we will always strive to do so. Unfortunately, some users have abused the service and purposely over paid their bills, followed by asking the biller for a refund. By doing this the user receives reward points from their credit card while, Paytm and the biller handle the unfair costs. We have actively put an end to this type of payment behaviour, and we will be persistent to prevent it from continuing to occur.

We wish to become the single destination for all Canadians to pay their bills and we will make it safer, easier and more rewarding than any other option. That’s our promise.

The 4% fee for Amex essentially kills PayTM as a payment option for me. I have only ever used PayTM to pay utility bills and property taxes. I would prefer if you just banned the people that are abusing your service, instead of punishing those of us who use it legitimately. jm

Still levying charges on paying bills is just ridiculous. Why dont you rename your app as Paytm Mastercard? This will help people not to get fooled and they will understand that Paytm service will work flawlessly only for mastercard. Will move to Mobikwik and Freecharge for more cashbacks and flawless service.

I don’t get it. Is the Visa thing because of the abuse described? It’s kinda mostly defeating the advantage of using Paytm for me. I do have nice rewards from Visa but I can pay my bills via my bank account online and don’t need third party service for it. I really hope the service will get back soon.

Agreed. PayTM should be able to detect those accounts with a large number of refunds and suspend them. On the other hand, rewards points are based on net purchases so if refunds were given, the number of rewards points are deducted. I’m not sure how someone can keep the reward points by asking for refunds. There is a cost to the biller and PayTM from these refunds.

I’m not okay with the discontinuation of the visa transactions. I got your point and concern why you blocked Visa cards.
I have only Visa cards through my bank. And a brand new user of the paytm Canada, getting use to it.

We definitely hope that it’ll get resolved soon. I understand that you only have Visa credit cards, and that it can be frusterating as you are a new user. In the meantime, we have other payment methods available like Paytm Cash and/or linking your bank account.

I was pleased to use PayTM for paying various bills from my Scotia Infinity VISA card. Scotia recognize PayTM payments as recurring payments and giving 2% cash back on them. Unfortunately, that came to an end.
I hope you will find a way to restore your relationships with Visa and I will be able to continue to use your service.

Hi Vincent,
Since Amex charges higher service fees than other credit cards, we could not continue to sustain the fees. That’s too bad that you feel that way, and we hope that you do continue to use our app. In fact, until January 31 we are offering all our customers 2% Cashback on every bill payment. Check out the app for more info.

I don’t care too much about the 4% on my Amex, I’m just grateful I can use my Amex instead of debit/cash. BTW I do have a MC world elite but Amex FTW. What I do care about is the limit allowed per transaction, as of right now, the limit is too small, and I have to result to other providers for larger transactions.

I was using Paytm since I am an AMEX user so I will be taking my business elsewhere. Many others I have spoken to will do so as well … with only Mastercard users as a reliable customer base … good luck! Fees are less at Plastiq for those who still want to use AMEX to pay bills.

That’s too bad to hear, and we hope that you return to use our app to pay your bills. While we have started charging convenience fees for AMEX users, it is still less than others. Paytm VIPs will pay 2%, and non-VIP’s will pay 3%.

Also, until Jan 31st all our customers will receive 2% Cashback on their bill payments. Check out the app for more info.

The AMEX fees essentially make paytm next to useless for most; its main intended use was to allow you to use AMEX where most places won’t accept it. Almost 99% of all vendors on paytm accept credit card (aside from AMEX), and I would say all can be paid via cash/bank account, so paytm’s purpose and usage has been severely diminished.

Such a shame to see this, as I’ve been recommending paytm to many friends in a similar situation.

I got this app last night thinking it would be an awesome way to stay on top of everything. I will be closing my account due to the fees for American Express cars holders. I can pay all of my bills directly through my billers with my Amex for no fee so using your app makes no sense at all now. Too bad, I was excited for some extra rewards.

The 2%, 3% or 4% fee for Amex essentially kills PayTM as a payment option for anyone. Levying charges on paying bills is just ridiculous. Even a Kinara shop accepts AMEX Nowadays. Why dont you rename your app as Paytm Mastercard? This will help people not to get fooled and they will understand that Paytm service will work flawlessly only for mastercard. Will move to Mobikwik and Freecharge for more cashbacks and flawless service.

Despite reading the comments regarding the fee levy for Amex & Visa cardholders, I was so impressed with your replies as I believe they reflected an outstanding commitment to excellent customer service. Because of this fact, I have decided to bite the bullet and find the best way of optimizing my experience on PayTM using other avenues.